To technical problems ... NASA is postponing the first flight of its Ingenuity mini-helicopter over Mars

Washington-SANA

The US space agency, NASA, has postponed the date of the first flight of its Ingenuity miniature helicopter over Mars for several days due to a technical problem that appeared during its propeller experiment.

The Ingenuity flight was scheduled for yesterday, but the full speed test of the 1.8-kilogram propeller of the helicopter ended earlier than scheduled due to a warning of a potential problem.

NASA said in a statement that the helicopter crew is analyzing telemetry techniques to diagnose and understand the problem, and as a result, they will reprogram the experiment at full speed, noting that the helicopter is intact and sent data to Earth.

The basic plan was to fly the Ingenuity for thirty seconds to take a photo of the Perseverance rover that landed on Mars on February 18th with the helicopter that was hanging on its rear façade.

NASA describes this unprecedented process as high risk, but stresses that it may allow the collection of very important data about life on Mars.